Trump rails over Mueller cover-up reports, as Republican senator brands him 'idiotic' over windmill cancer comments
The attorney general is expected to deliver a redacted version of the Mueller report as early as this month
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Your support makes all the difference.Investigators working for FBI special counsel Robert Mueller say attorney general William Barr has misrepresented just how damaging their report really is to Donald Trump, according to reports.
Mr Barr’s four-page letter to Congress summarising its contents last month stated Mr Mueller had reached a “no collusion” conclusion regarding the president’s relationship with Russia, but stopped short of exonerating him on obstruction of justice charges.
In response to that limitd discllosure, the House Judiciary Committee voted to subpoena the full, unredacted 400-page report from Mr Barr on Wednesday after he missed their deadline for it to be handed over, while the House Ways and Means Committee has formally demanded that the Treasury Department release Mr Trump's income tax returns.
The report is currently being combed over by Justice Department officials, who are determining how much of the documented or classified.
Some reports have indicated that there is classified material — like grand jury information, or information related to ongoing investigations — on most if not all of the pages. Those would need to be redacted for security reasons.
The report has already sparked protests across the US, with demonstrations planned for Thursday night in Washington outside of the White House and in New York.
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Joe Biden has been another recent target of the president's mockery.
The 76-year-old former vice-president, considering a presidential run in 2020, has been hit by accusations of inappropriate conduct towards women. He has since posted a mobile phone video on Twitter apologising for his behaviour.
"Social norms have begun to change," he says. "They've shifted. And the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset. And I get it. I get it. I hear what they are saying. I understand."
Here's Andrew Buncombe on the president's jokes at Biden's expense.
Utah Republican Chris Stewart has announced the formation of an "anti-socialism caucus" within the House of Representatives to push back against the influence of left-leaning Democratic idealists like AOC and Ilhan Omar.
"This caucus will defend individual liberty & free markets and highlight the dark history of socialism,” he said in a tweet.
The dark history of socialism is clearly on the party's mind. Only last month, Republicans were warned by former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka at CPAC that Joseph Stalin was after their all-American hamburgers.
Here's Zamira Rahim's report.
Gorka was wrong about the Soviet Union's attitude to hamburgers, incidentally.
Don Jr is getting flack this morning for posting this spectacularly tasteless video of Joe Biden acting inappropriately with himself from an alt-right meme account.
Here's Jerrold Nadler with an update on the House Judiciary Committee's decision on Wednesday to issue a subpoena to William Barr to retrieve the Mueller report.
His Republican counterpart in the Senate, Lindsey Graham, wants the chance to speak to Barr himself and is apparently not interested in the paper trail.
The Washington Post has a few details of the structure of the Mueller report this morning.
Here's journalist Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times on CNN's New Day, elaborating on the newspaper's report on "simmering frustrations" within the Mueller camp over William Barr
Actor John Lithgow appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night to promote a new book of poems for children about Donald Trump, entitled Dumpty.
Lithgow gave a reading of the Seussian final poem in the book, "Afterward", and it's well worth your time. Here's an extract.
The report was at hand and Dumpty was manic
Awash in a flood of distemper and panic.
At lush Mar-a-Lago, his Florida lair,
He braced for Bob Mueller, his ruthless Javert.
His heart skipped a beat when, from distant DC,
Came a call from Bill Barr, his conniving AG.
Dumpty lurched from his bed with a ponderous groan
And with trembling fingers he picked up the phone.
"Good news!" Barr exclaimed. "We’re home free!"
"It’s a wash!"
"The report’s a big nothing that’s easy to quash!"
Thus began Barr’s campaign to covertly impede it
Since he, only he, was entitled to read it.
Veteran Iowa senator Chuck Grassley has branded President Trump's suggestion that the noise from windmills causes cancer "idiotic".
It's hard to disagree with the 86-year-old Republican and lifelong farmer, who added: "I wish his staff would tell him I'm the father and now the grandfather of wind energy tax credits. I don't think he knows it, or I don't think he'd make those comments that aren't quite appropriate."
Another man who has lost all patience with the president's ludicrous assault on environmental causes is our own Chris Riotta, who takes his draconian energy policies to task below.
Imagine this being your very first thought of the morning, as the sunlight streams in through the curtains and you sit up in bed with a stifled yawn and a stretch. Unreal.
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